Death of a Non-Hero

Now AND AT THE HOUR (I 89 pp.)--Robert Cormier--Coward-McCann ($3).

To write well about death is never easy and always dangerous. Words tend to become solemn; compassion blends with sentimental pity; and the reader may easily find himself stirred by nothing stronger than acute discomfort. Tolstoy managed superbly in The Death of Ivan Ilyich, and Flaubert in Madame Bovary. This first novel challenges neither of the masters but shows that modesty and sympathy can be enough to make a death seem both dignified and touching.

In his modest house in a New England factory town, Alphege LeBlanc lies dying of cancer. He does not know it at first and hopes for the wonders of X-ray to take hold. LeBlanc is a simple man, a factory hand who never had the drive to get ahead and now dwells with thankfulness on the fact that at least his wife and children never went hungry. But as his illness continues to race through his body, he is more and more afraid that he was merely a provider, and not a very good one. A sense of failure edges his warm memories of a happy marriage, the trivia of a pleasant, unexciting family life.

LeBlanc is no hero. He fears death, and when he senses its imminence it requires all his strength to keep from cracking up. Since he has nothing to bequeath, he is determined to leave at least a memory of uncomplaining courage. As his hour approaches, irrational hopes and fears seize him. He has a nightmare vision of yawning hell, and mistakes a grandchild for a daughter who had died at three. As his body shrinks, so does the area that absorbs his attention. The world of town and factory, of family and responsibility, gives way to what goes on in the house, "and then to this room and then this bed and now his body." Author Cormier follows with dogged sympathy each shattering assault of the disease, each new influx of fear. When the end comes, LeBlanc has won his victory through silence. He has not cracked. "And he knew he was safe now. There was nothing left in him to betray him. He could let go."

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